PREPARATION; We started in the month of March 2004. We read in the national review of astronomy Tribuna de Astronomía y Universo that Venus would pass the sun in June after more than a hundred years since the last time. We found in the Internet two programs of atomic clocks: ATOMTIME95 and DIMENSION 4. We downloaded the programs and installed them on the computers in the computer lab. On computering classes Sara and Cristian, from 4º A, took notice of the deviations of these clocks in relation to the Universal times provided by ATOMTIME95 y DTIME5, the last one from the University of Lyon. At the beginning of May we contacted with the webpage from the International organization VT-2004, and read about an atomic match program called STOPER and... selected the atomic clock form the Paris observatory. Cristian detected that from Friday to Wednesday the computers put back up to seven seconds, cyclically, since if the deviation was not corrected they maintained the seven seconds put back weekly and every day the highest variation of advancement or put-back was two seconds. Sara estimated that in the six hours of duration of the transit, the advancement or put back was going to be half a second. As the setting of our clock in relation to TU was going to be done one day before, we would probably have the videos two seconds put back in the worst o f the cases. Therefore Carmen would have to be going up and down from the computer lab to the courtyard, where the telescopes, cameras and videos were, with the digital chronometer which was superimposed on the screen so that Rocio could take note of the time differences. We used the Time Server from the STOPER, FR BNM-SYRTE, OBSERVATOIRE DE PARIS. PARIS, and the one used by the teacher to check the times with the FR INSTITUT CURIE, SECTION DE RECHERCHE, PARIS. The teacher found out that the difference was 32 milliseconds in the worst case and this was due to the computer and Internet delay; He said that this was not important. Afterwards we created two Excel templates to print them later; one of the them would be used to take note of the video times with the atomic clocks and the other one to take note of the contact times in the six teams following the instructions of the international organization VT-2004 which asked that a team to register for every device used to gather data. Diego registered us in the page for VT-2004 Observation Campaign Interface with the following IDs:
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ESTUARIA1 : Recording with a black and white camera ccd steel with 15 mm Ploss lens and 8x50 guide telescope which was set as the searcher for 25 cm telescope. ESTUARIA2 : Visual observation filtered through a 100 mm refractor and a focal 10 with an ocular of 22 mm of our colleague Frank. ESTUARIA3 : Observation by projection on screen of the image gathered by a 60 mm refractor with a focal of 12 and ocular of 23 mm. ESTUARIA4 : Video color recording with a SONY video HI8 HANDYCAM camera mounted on piggy back on the telescope MEADE GPS S/C of 10" ESTUARIA5 : Recording of fixed images from a ccd LPI located as a direct focus in a telescope MEADE GPS S/Cassegrain 10" (250 mm of diameter). ESTUARIA6 : Visual observer using solar filtering sunglasses FTO-Solar OAKS (she made them herself) |
| We had planned to register fourteen more observers if it had been possible to see the contacts directly with our eyes, but that was not possible. All the pupils from 4º A in the subject Métodos de la Ciencia (Scientific methods) made their own glasses using gloves to avoid skin fat to touch the filters and observe the transit but without being able to determine the moments of contact with slightest certainty. Nevertheless, the image of the tiny spot passing the sun as seen with their own eyes and the hand-made glasses would be hard to forget. |
The
principal and his assistant “store” two pairs of glasses for them. The image
from team 4 recorded with an optical zoom shows the difficulty in visually
determining the contacts.
The times are expressed in T. U. and
the deviation for this camera and for this moment was two seconds more, so
it was 8:24:58 local time , 6:24:58 TU. The motorized GPS telescope has
two video cameras and the CCD LPI for teams 1, 4 and 5. |
We set the geographical position with a cartographic map from the army scale1:25.000 of the city of Huelva getting 37º 15´ North and 6º 56´ West. Since we didn’t feel capable to taking the seconds with certainty we asked for help to the Asociación de astronomía de Huelva, A. C. O. A. A.. They gave us a GPS and a GPS telescope that we would use on the 8 th in our observation. We took measures during a week at different times to have different positions in relation to the satellites. We obtained in the north goal of the sports field the following coordinates: 37º 15´ 47" North y 6º 56´ 2" west . (37.2630555 N y 6.9333833 W in decimal format), Afterwards, a couple of weeks before the 8th of June we realized that in the VT-2004 page we had the possibility to obtain an approximate position for our city, recorded in the database. We were lucky because this fact let us refine perfectly with the GPS.
   And then we have picture from team 3, ESTUARIA3 , wehre we couldn’t determine any of the moments of contact because the supporting bar was instable. |
The department of Social Science programmed a series of quizzes for the pupils of 1º ESO to learn the concepts worked on in the first didactic unit. For the rest of the courses they remembered about the solar system. The activity was created as a continuation for the activity "COPÉRNICO", the transit of Mercury the previous year. (7th May 2003 was a little cloudy day). Last year the sun showed spots and this year, closer to the minimum of activity, didn’t show any. Hardlyperceptible we find Mercury and more clearly the solar spots below is compared with the image of Venus made with the same refractor and the same ampliation scale in the left picture. |
The previous week we had a meeting with the teacher and organized the event: We design a program which was followed in detail with the exception of not being able to use the wireless network since that day th wireless network of some neighbours was onand they prevented the reception of ours, so we cancelled the direct retransmision to our school webpages (We will be ready next time).
The only thing left was the weather forecasts. A few days before the event the forecast by the INSTITUTO METEOROLÓGICO NACIONAL were terrible. Though on Sunday it had been sunny, on Monday 7 the cloudy sky with showers multiplied our searches in the "METEOSAT" in Weather Satellite Images and Movie. On Monday afternoon it cleared up and the satellite images foresaw a clear night. A pupil’s father recerived the triptics from the PLANETARIO de Pamplona just in time to sort them out in the courtyard at 11:30 on Monday 7. Everybody in the school knew about the event and many classmated offered to help in the last moment. The Tribuna de ASTRONOMÍA magazine and Universo, together with Sky & Telescope heeded us prepare for the event.
- Program, resources and materials: ;Monday 7, June. 15:00. The schools secretary gives the principal and Manuel Reina the school’s keys. Physical Education department : They took all the jumping hurdles which would be used to delimit the situation of telescopes and Project the floors.
Maintenance staff. (Pepe): He had to turn the goals 90º so that it could give shade for the screes and tv sets. He didn’t manage to do it. We also checked that the electric plug from the sports hall had electric suplí and was useful for the electric hose (from the Art classroom). This hose was set in side the sports hall before 15:00 on Monday 7 . And porters : They found and have ready the clothes which the students would use the following day to cover the north goal Department of Crosscurricular activities, They brought to the sports field six chairs and a table from the library. They also carried a tv set, ready to be used by the students of 4º A. They would place it before 9:00 in the courtyard so that it could be used to visualize what was being recorded and everybody could see the transit in turns of 15 or 30 minutes. Department of Physics and Chemistry: They supplied a termometer, a barometer and a cronometer .
Note: The most diffficult thing was to explain everything in only 10 pages including a section on the progress work and the gallery. Made with Microsoft FrontPage . IES Estuaria. 2004. Main Page or go on